Now that the number-two official at the Justice Department has resigned, the
question many in Washington are asking is: Will soon-to-be-former Deputy
Attorney General Paul McNulty be DOJ's fall guy  or its worst nightmare?

As is so often the case when someone gets the ax in Washington, the official
explanation for McNulty's departure was personal. In his one-page letter to
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, the deputy AG wrote that he will be
leaving in late summer because of the "financial realities" of trying to
provide for college-age children on a government salary. McNulty, 49, has
worked nearly half his life either on Capitol Hill or in the executive
branch.

But no one is taking that to be the real reason. Since McNulty's
congressional testimony in February that the White House was involved in the
firing of at least one of the nine U.S. attorneys who were forced to resign
last year, the tension between his office and Gonzales's has divided and
crippled the department. "There's a war going on between the DAG's office
and the AG's office," says one senior Justice official."The thing that's
100% clear is that there's really no leadership. Both the DAG and the AG are
so compromised, there's no one running the department. There's a lot of
antagonism between those two groups. The DAG is throwing [Gonzales and his team] under the bus."

The Administration had hoped that McNulty's testimony before the Senate
Judiciary Committee would tamp down what it then considered a minor
controversy. Instead, it helped fuel it into a major one. Subsequent
accounts and documents released by the Administration confirmed that the
White House had been involved in the dismissals, and far more extensively
than McNulty indicated. Meanwhile, his contention that most of the firings
had been "performance related" outraged many of the dismissed U.S.
attorneys, who had been silent until then. It turned out most had been good
performers. McNulty has since blamed the discrepancy on inadequate briefing
by Gonzales's then Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson and Monica Goodling, who was
the Department's White House liaison. Both have resigned amid the spreading
scandal.

Key officials, including Goodling  who pleaded Fifth Amendment
protection against self-incrimination, but has since been granted
immunity  are expected to be called in front of the House and Senate
judiciary committees in coming weeks. There is some speculation that, with
McNulty's pending departure, they will attempt to shift more of the blame
for the debacle onto him, saying that he was more involved in the
decision-making surrounding the firing of the U.S. attorneys than he has
thus far let on. In fact, the shifting has already begun. "You have to remember, at
the end of the day, the recommendations reflected the views of the deputy
attorney general. He signed off on the names," Gonzales told reporters at a
National Press Club forum the morning after McNulty announced his
resignation. "And he would know better than anyone else, anyone in this
room, anyone  again, the deputy attorney general would know best about the
qualifications and the experiences of the United States attorneys community,
and he signed off on the names." McNulty may feel the need to
address the issue again, to clear up the question of precisely
why the prosecutors were dismissed. The darkest theories are that their removal was designed to affect the prosecution of specific cases  particularly ones that might have affected the outcomes of close electoral contests. McNulty would be in a position to testify as to how much political pressure, if any, the White House was putting on DOJ.

Congressional investigators say they intend to press on with their demands
for additional testimony from Administration officials, including the
President's top political adviser, Karl Rove. Lawmakers have also said they
will not confirm any more Justice Department nominees until they are given
e-mails and other documentation they have demanded from the White House.

Whatever happens, McNulty's resignation leaves congressional leaders far
from satisfied. "It seems ironic that Paul McNulty, who at least tried to
level with the committee, goes, while Gonzales, who stonewalled the
committee, is still in charge," said Senator Charles Schumer, a member of
the Judiciary Committee and one of the loudest voices in Congress demanding
Gonzales's resignation. "This Administration owes us a lot better."